Marvin Hamlisch

Marvin Hamlisch was born into a musical family. His father Max Hamlisch was an accordionist and band leader. He began playing piano when he was five.

A child prodigy, Hamlisch was accepted into Juilliard at the age of six—the youngest child ever to be welcomed by the august Manhattan institution. His first Broadway job was as rehearsal pianist for Funny Girl starring Barbra Streisand—a professional relationship that would last his entire life. Producer Sam Spiegel hired him to play piano at his parties, where he made connections, leading to his writing his first film score, for "The Swimmer" starring Burt Lancaster. Many more film scores followed.

Professional acknowledgment came easy in his early years. Before he was 30, he had received three Oscars, for his score and song to "The Way We Were" and his adaptations of Scott Joplin ragtime tunes in "The Sting," which helped usher in a Joplin revival. And that was all in 1973. He began to be a regular guest on talk shows and was called "the best-known movie composer since Henry Mancini."

It seemed his fate to brush up against show-business legends while on his way up the ladder. He wrote songs for Liza Minnelli, worked with Judy Garland and was accompanist and straight man for Groucho Marx during a 1974-75 tour.

In recent years, he composed some classical works, and frequently conducted major symphony orchestras.